Up the Amazon Without a Paddle
I had a really hard time getting through this book. When I read the title on the cover, I got the impression that the stories were supposed to be amusing disasters or otherwise funny, but that is not the case. While some of the stories had funny aspects, (perhaps a handful out of sixty), most of the stories were dry, laundry-list like retellings of Lanskyâs adventures all around the world. Some of these adventures included hanging out with the military in the Middle East, taking the JFK tour in Dallas, watching a bullfight in Madrid, studying Spanish in Guatemala, moose hunting in Sweden, caving in New Zealand, learning how to surf in Australia, sailing down the Nile in a felucca, and staying awake during a Chinese opera. Most of the time Lansky explores our vast world on his own, but sometimes he brings his family members or girlfriend. At other times, he meets people on the road to take with him. My biggest issues with this book are manifold:
1) The second portion of the title, â60 offbeat adventures around the world,â gave me the impression that the stories would be funny or otherwise entertaining. Donât ask me why, I couldnât really tell you; but, Lansky didnât live up to my expectations in this department, which contributed to my disliking the novel.
2) Lansky has a very bland and straight forward manner of speaking, which made his prose painful to get through.
3) Lansky doesnât seem like a naturally funny guy-- he tries to interject humor, especially when captioning the few photos that appear in this novel, but theyâre just cheesy and not funny. He also has horrid âtiming,â which is something you hear about a lot when you talk about a comicâs ability to deliver punchlines. I know this is much harder to do in a written format; but, Lansky really sucks at it.
4) Sometimes you wondered why Lansky bothered to include certain expeditions and stories. For example, he included one about âtrying to master the complexities of a dutch toilet,â which is something he failed miserably at. Maybe he was trying to be funny, I donât know, but the story wasnât funny and simply demonstrated that he has apparently gone most of his life without figuring out how to use a dutch toilet.
5) Lansky keeps telling us who the âusual suspectsâ are and itâs bloody annoying. Iâm not going to forget that Signe is within a few paragraphs, so you donât need to tell me about it over and over again. Geez, I get that youâre in a relationship and youâre overjoyed, but I donât want to hear about it all the frickinâ time.
Now on the flip side, the one thing I liked about the novel was that most of the chapters (or stories if youâd prefer), were about 3-5 pages long. This made it easy to pick up and then put down and digest; but, other than that, I donât have anything positive to say. So in the end, I would suggest that you give this book a miss and pick up something else to read.Â
